Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Juvenile, Unknown sex - X
- Tags
- Multiple species
Observation details
Continuing first-cycle bird, first found by Steve Hampton on the 2nd. After hearing that the Iceland Gull found by Steve Hampton on the 2nd was still being seen on the 4th, I decided to make a day trip down to see it with my brother Quintin. We arrived at Ft Baker, Marin County, at about 2:30, and found the Iceland Gull within two minutes. We then observed the bird for the next hour preening, swimming, flying, and feeding on herring roe that had washed up on the beach. Description. A small, extremely pale gull. It was the lightest bird of the 500 or so gulls present, about equally pale as a Glaucous Gull (though none were present for direct comparison). The Iceland Gull was slightly smaller than the Thayer;s Gulls present in the flock, and distinctly smaller than the California Gulls; it was only marginally larger than the single Ring-billed Gull I saw. Head: The bird had a white, round head. The bill was short and thin, without much of a gonydeal angle, and was two-toned, dull black and dark horn or flesh colored, though it was not cleanly bicolored. The crown and nape was very lightly streaked with dark. The eye was black. Body: The bird was generally white-bodied with tan highlights. The underparts, especially the belly, were a touch darker than the rest of the bird. The undertail coverts were barred tan and white. The legs were pink. Wings: The wings were as pale as the rest of the bird, except for the primary tips, which were completely white. There was no marked contrast between the tips of the secondaries and the primaries. The outside webs of the primaries were tan towards the base, becoming pale to white distally. The tertials were only very faintly flecked in light tan and had slightly tannish centers, but were otherwise completely white. The coverts were not especially cleanly checkered, but were distinctly patterned. Tail: The rectrices were distally white, but the bird had a distinct coffee-with-cream band on the inner portions of the tail. The tail appeared slightly worn.
Technical information
- Model
- Canon EOS 40D
- ISO
- 400
- Focal length
- 310 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire, auto
- f-stop
- f/8.0
- Shutter speed
- 1/2500 sec
- Dimensions
- 2983 pixels x 2232 pixels
- Original file size
- 1.94 MB